


Let Anubis give Vigour to my Legs

by 0positiv



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch, The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Fandom Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 06:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9422576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0positiv/pseuds/0positiv
Summary: Surely someone stealing a bus and leaving pieces of dismembered mummies strewn all over London did not go unnoticed by the police. And as usual when weird bollocks happens why not make it the Folly's problem? Hence we have young Nightingale out and about poking at mummies.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because my mind is constantly in crossover mode this little plot bunny hopped up to me while I was rewatching The Mummy movies. It's a fandom fusion more than an actual crossover so no characters from The Mummy so far, only Nightingale poking around in the aftermath. I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

Nightingale squatted down and poked at the sad bundles of decomposing linen wrappings and dried flesh with his cane.

“It fell from a bus, you say?”

The policeman gave a terse nod.

“Yes, sir. Stolen red bus, double decker, we found it on Tower Bridge, abandoned, and more pieces of that in it and on the streets all the way from the British Museum. My guv called you lot and they said you'd be the expert.”

Tuning out the policeman's babbling Nightingale concentrated on the _vestigia_ clinging to the body parts. Incense and fire and the waters of the Nile as well as burning hatred. Definitely Egyptian, and old. He thought that he might be the only one at the Folly who had even been to Egypt so while he might not be an expert he surely was the closest to one they had.

It wasn't often that he happened to be in London these days.

India, Germany, France, sometimes even Australia or America, he would go where ever they sent him. He had only a week ago returned from Cairo which was why the Folly thought mummies would be right up his alley.

Not that he'd seen all that many mummies in Egypt, actually. It seemed most tombs had been looted and the mummies and valuables shipped off to Europe or America. There had been nearly no _vestigia_ left on the few artefacts he'd been able to examine, hardly surprising after they had been locked away in a tomb for centuries. But what little _vestigia_ he had found had been very similar to these ones.

He had talked to the god of the Nile about all the tomb raiding at length, pleasant fellow, very attractive in a dark Arabian way. They had spent many an evening entertaining each other with stories, among other things.

“Officer? I would like you to pack up all these pieces and have them delivered to the Folly for examination.”

Nightingale stood up and dusted off his hands.

“I would also very much like to have a look around the museum, see where those mummies came from.”

The policeman nodded and hurried off to do as he had been told.

These destroyed mummies reminded Nightingale of one of the tales of the old gods Nile had told him.

Of how the God Seth, envious of his brother Osiris, killed him and dismembered him then scattered the body over the land.

It was a terrible fate for the Ancient Egyptians to have their corpses violated such. They believed that only a well preserved body that the spirit of the deceased could recognise would guarantee them a happy afterlife.

And so Isis, grieving sister wife of Osiris, had gathered up all the parts of his body she could find and reassembled them. She wrapped them in linen wrappings and thus Osiris became god of the underworld.

It had all been terribly fascinating if far fetched from a modern point of view.

And yet, it still was sacrilege to treat corpses in this way, no matter the religion.

As he got into his car to drive to the museum his thoughts returned to his time in Egypt. To the breeze stirring the curtains at the open windows of Nile's house by the river, the suffocating heat of the day turning into the too cold nights of the desert. He had enjoyed his weeks in that exotic land where the very stones of the ancient temples still whispered of forgotten secrets and a faint hint of magic so alien to anything he had studied.

And Nile telling him about the long-forgotten gods of his people, spinning the most outrageous tales so that Nightingale was never quite sure what to take as fact and what to discount as a clever lie.

For example allegedly Horus, son of Osiris, had tricked his uncle Seth who proclaimed he would be a better leader of the gods than the young Horus into eating semen on a lettuce leaf and thus shamed him in front of all the other gods as one who desires men.

One story that stayed with him had been the weighting of the hearts. For when they died the Ancient Egyptians believed they would find themselves in front of a heavenly court where their fate was to be decided. So the gods placed the hearts of the dead on a scale and should it weight heavier than a feather with it's misdeeds they would feed it to a soul eater and the dead one's soul would never be able to reach the afterlife.

His trip down memory lane was cut short by his arrival at the museum. Getting out of his car he found, apart from the police car, that there was another, apparently abandoned, vehicle in front of the museum.

“Do we know whose car this is, officer?”

“We're working on it, sir.”

“Good, let me know what you find out.”

Inside the museum it looked like vandals had taken out their anger on the walls, display cases and artefacts inside them. Broken glass crunched under his feet as he slowly made his way along the path of destruction back to the storage halls.

Here he found clusters of bullet holes in the walls, torches that had burned themselves out a while ago and such strong _vestigia_ that it knocked him back a step or two.

Stepping into the storage hall he thought he heard chanting and a man's laughter and the feeling of wrongness and evil seeping into his very skin made him long for a hot bath.

Clearly there had been some strong magic taking place right here. Old, non-Newtonian magic right in the heart of London. What was the world coming to?

He found more broken artefacts here, a few urns, canopic jars. Crates were broken open and empty, most likely they had once contained the artefacts. The ground was littered with fragments of an amber-like material with traces of slightly different _vestigia_. Here it was defeat and loneliness, darkness and quiet, death. He wrapped a few pieces up in his handkerchief. Maybe David would be able to tell him what kind of substance it was.

After having completed his examination of the hall he walked back outside to take a closer look at the holes in the outside wall. Going by the way the debris had fallen the walls had been breached from the inside. Interesting.

The officer came hurrying towards him as soon as he had left the building.

“Sir, we know who the car belongs to!”

Nightingale leaned on his cane and smiled at the enthusiastic young man.

“Well, do tell me then, I am all aquiver with curiosity.”

Blushing slightly the officer held out a piece of paper to Nightingale.

“The car is registered to a Richard O'Connell, American, but married to a British woman, Evelyn O'Connell, née Carnahan. I have written their address down for you but it seems they have booked a flight to Egypt only last night. Their plane has already left.”

Nightingale took the piece of paper and looked back to the museum thoughtfully.

“I do not think this incident and their most likely only tangential involvement would justify me following them all the way to Egypt. I shall return to the Folly but please inform me as soon as they are back in the country. I would very much like to have a word with them.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, that's all for now but if the muses cooperate I might write a second chapter where Nightingale actually gets to meet Evie, Rick, Jonathan and Alex. We shall see. As always, comments feed the muses ;)


End file.
